Pelagic species size distributions in lakes: Are they discontinuous?

Aquatic ecologists have many models for size distributions of pelagic commu nities. However, few studies have looked for discontinuities (clumps of sim ilarly sized species or gaps of sizes that contain no or relatively few spe cies) in pelagic community size structure. We investigated size distributio n characteristics in aquatic communities by calculating kernel density func tions for plankton and fish in 11 lakes in Wisconsin. Size distributions in aquatic communities of these lakes were not smooth. Rather, multiple lump and gap regions were found within each functional group of phytoplankton, z ooplankton, and fish. Simulations showed the gaps could not be explained by incomplete censuses of species or by systematic underestimation of intrasp ecific size variation. In an experimentally enriched lake, before and after comparisons showed lumps were not affected by large additions of P and N, even though biomass and production changed substantially. Lump regions in t he two lakes with both food web manipulations and nutrient enrichment were substantially less similar pre- versus postenrichment than the reference la ke and the lake with only nutrients added, but lump number remained relativ ely unchanged. Lakes that differed widely in nutrient status, trophic struc ture, species diversity, and area had similar size distributions. Compariso ns of functional groups showed that phytoplankton had more lumps than zoopl ankton. In these north temperate lakes, size distribution characteristics s eem to be conservative properties shaped by common regional ecosystem proce sses and organism patterns and not by lake-specific factors.